Her time was up fifteen minutes ago. What the hell is she doing?

I glance out the window. Katie bends over, chatting away to Dixie as though she’s a person. I swallow. The morning has passed in excruciating moments. A second-by-second battle to honor our deal—not while she’s on the clock. Where all I could think about was how she sat at my table and told me things. Remembering her sitting there, pink cheeked, and talking through her fingers. Things she’d let me do to her. They’ve haunted me like poltergeists, those things.

Except, for the first time in a goddamn year, she appears to be in no rush. No hurry whatsoever.

Has she changed her mind?

I go to the door and step outside. “Katie.”

She looks up from Dixie and grins. I almost stagger. Look at that smile. Those perfect, short, even teeth. So adorable she couldn’t possibly be for me.

She beckons me over with the curl of her finger. “Dixie, let’s show Daddy what we can do.”

Daddy. My hands clench, but I approach.

She turns to Dixie then grabs her own throat with her hand, tilts her head, sticks out her tongue, and makes a gurgling sound. The boxer falls to the ground, rolls onto her back, her legs straight up in the air.

I blink and stare at my petrified dog. “What have you done to her?”

“She’s playing dead.” Katie shoots me this tsking side-eye, as if I should know better. “See?”

She pats her thigh, and Dixie bounces up and sits, thick tail thumping on the grass. Katie does the ridiculous, tongue-out, choking thing, and Dixie tips over.

She laughs and claps her hands. “Good girl.”

Dixie leaps ups and crashes into Katie’s legs. She bends and pets the dog.

“You taught her that?” I glance back and forth between girl and dog. “How long did it take?”

“About three weeks. She’s really good at it now.” Katie beams.

I squint. What else has she managed without me knowing?

She touches my arm. “Try it.”

I glance at her delicate fingers on my arm. Try that? I’d look absurd doing that. I look back to Katie. Sure, it’s cute when she does it, but I’d look like a giant fool.

I frown. “No.”

“Please, won’t you try?” Her fingers move to my upper arm. “It’s fun, Daddy.”

My muscles clench. The cheeky tease. Daddy-ing me like that.

She looks up at me with cornflower-blue eyes and dusty lashes, and how the fuck am I supposed to say no?

“Dixie.” I grip my throat and make the stupid sound.

The dog turns to me, panting excitedly.

And does nothing.

“Dixie.” I repeat louder, and do it again.

Her tail thumps the lawn, and her head tips to the side. Even she thinks I’m ridiculous.

“You’re supposed to stick your tongue out.”

I glance at Katie. Fine. I stick out my tongue and try again.

Dixie trots back to Katie, who scruffs her neck. Why the hell isn’t my dog doing her trick for me?

“Hmm,” she says. “I guess she just responds better to my authority.”

My teeth snap. What now?

She hooks her thumb into the pocket of her almost-invisible shorts. “Dog’s respond to the most alpha in a group, you know.”

My gaze takes her in from the toes of her scuffed sneakers to the top of her blonde little head. This itty-bity, dainty, little thing thinks she’s the most alpha here?

More than me?

I roll my head on my neck. Just give me a goddamn minute, and I’ll show her some goddamn authority. First, though, I’m nailing this trick.

“Dixie,” I growl, jam out my tongue, grab my throat, tilt my head, and make the gurgling sound.

Dixie bounds to me and throws herself against my shins.

“Told you, authority.” Katie clucks her tongue. “You spoil her too much. She needs a firmer hand.”

What. The. Fuck.

“See?” She does it again.

I watch, gaze flying from Dixie to Katie and back again. A flash of movement catches my eye.

No way.

Katie clutches her throat with her right hand, but with her left hand, tucked right by her hip, she twirls a single finger.

I step forward. “You little cheat…”

Katie stumbles back and bursts into laughter.

I point a finger at her. “That was never the signal.”

She fooled me. Fooled me the whole time.

She laughs harder and points at me in return. “Gotcha!”

The brat.

“Got me?” I shake my finger at her. “No, honey—I’ll get you.”

Her eyes go wide. I lunge forward. She squeals and bolts across the lawn. My arms swipe at nothing. Dixie shoots after her. I growl and go after them. My strides eat up the space between us in a few moments.

She glances behind her and squeals again. Dixie tangles in my legs. I hit the ground hard and look up.

Katie sprints to the corner of the yard with the cherry tree.

I see what she’s going to do before she does it. “Don’t go on that, Katie.”

She scrambles onto the ancient trampoline I never bothered to have scrapped when I moved into this place.

“It’s not safe,” I shout and get to my feet.

It’s too late; she’s already on it. The squeak of rusted springs rings out.

I glance at my grass-stained jeans. It’s a good thing I already called that I’d be in late today. She bounces higher as I approach.

“Get down.”

Her hair flies up above her head. “But I’m playing.”

The way she says that almost has my zipper busting. Playing. I know full goddamn well how she likes to play—that’s what she calls what we do. Playing. Except now she’s gone rogue, making up her own rules.

Toying with me and trying to get a rise.

I reach the edge of the trampoline. Well, something has risen, all right. “If I have to come up there and get you, there will be big trouble.”

She bounces again, and it’s undeniable, yet again, that the girl is not wearing a bra. “Come up and play with me.”

“No. I’m too big, I’ll break it.” My voice goes as rusted as those squeaking springs. I look at those perky, bouncing tits, and I can already see them, twisted toward me, covered in my cum.

Then tension winds tight in my balls. I want that again. Want to cover her in me and claim what’s mine.

Dixie runs circles around the trampoline, snapping and yapping.

“Dixie.” I point to the back door. “Inside now.”

The dog stops running and goes directly to the door. I look at Katie and arch my brow.

How’s that for authority?

She just continues to smirk and jump. My girl is really enjoying herself this morning. Really enjoying herself at my expense.

Soon, I’ll be the one enjoying myself at hers.

I prowl around the edge of the trampoline. She bounces closer. I make a swipe for one of her toned, sun-kissed calves.

She hops back, and her clear laughter rings out across the yard. “Almost.”

I ease back. Rusted metal leaves a red smear across my t-shirt, and this girl will pay for that, too. I pant and brush the front of my shirt and stalk the perimeter. Just one little bounce in my direction, and I’ll have her.

She leaps closer.

I lunge, slamming into the trampoline and reaching for her. She squeals. The trampoline moves a whole foot, but she jumps, somehow clearing my arms.

Her laughter chimes louder and longer. “You’re just too slow.”

“Slow?” My heart pumps. Me, slow? Clay Colson, slow? “You think I’m too slow to get you?”

She just shrugs and jumps.

Wicked, evil little tease.

I’m on the trampoline in one movement. She shrieks and bounces. I fall down twice. Then I’m up, my arms around her waist, and then I slam her flat onto the mat. Her soft, tiny body is under mine, and the temptation is there to knock her legs open and lay myself over her and do what I’ve been picturing since the day I opened my front door and saw that nervous little smile of hers.

But that would be, as she teasingly told me, spoiling.

She needn’t worry about that. She’ll get the firm hand she believes in. Just not before I collect my revenge. I grab her hands and yank her arms above her head.

Her lashes flare wide.

I clamp her wrists together in one hand and shake my head at her look of surprise. Did she forget how much bigger than her I am?

How easily I can restrain her?

I squeeze her legs closed between my knees and lean off her. How simple it is for me to keep my naughty girl in line. “Did you have fun teasing Daddy?”

Her giggles fade away, and she squirms.

I look over her wiggling body. Now I have her, I’m not letting go anytime soon. I take the edge of her pink t-shirt and yank it up over her chest.

Her sweet tits tremble.

My cock leaps, and I’m so hard, so horny and hungry and desperate, that maybe she’s right—maybe I have no authority.

Maybe I’m helpless to her.

“I asked you a question, Katie.” I clear my throat, and it takes everything I have to keep on talking. “Did you have fun teasing Daddy?”

Her full lower lip catches between her teeth, but she nods.

“And didn’t I warn you there’d be trouble if I had to come up here and get you?”

She nods again.

I grab her cute little chin and halt her movement. “Words.”

Her lip pops free. It’s all I can do not to bite it.

“Yes, Daddy. You did.”

“That’s better.” I let her chin go and look back down at her body—my body, because she belongs to me.

She’s my girl.

Mine to look after, reward, teach, and punish.

I can’t help running my palm over her pale skin. Can’t help spreading my hand in the center of her chest between her tits. The sight clamps the tension in my guts tighter. My hand is giant on her. I’m so much rougher and courser, and I don’t even know how I’m allowed to touch something so fucking precious. I work her t-shirt higher, so it’s gathered around her upper arms and across her neck.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she whispers.

“No, you’re not.” I brush across her nipples. They pebble under my touch, but they haven’t earned my attention yet. “But you will be.”

Her soft gasp fans my lust.

I move my touch to the smooth hollow of her armpit.

“No,” she shouts and strains away.

But it’s too late for protests. I wiggle my fingers in her armpit. She squeals, whole body jerking, before bursting into uncontrolled laughter.

I tickle all down her side, and squeals pierce her laughs.

A chuckle rises in my chest. “Now you can laugh at me.”

She’s more ticklish than I could hope for, and it’s the sweetest revenge in the world.

“No.”

She twists from side to side, laughing and heaving, but I’ve got her pinned. I move to her belly, and she lets out another scream before succumbing to laughter again.

Her entire face scrunches. Tears roll down her cheeks.

Laughter booms out of me, joining with hers.

“Please, please,” she gasps. “I’ll pee.”

I stop my movements, resting my hand on her stomach. Her laughter slows, and she pants for air.

“Have you learned your lesson?”

She nods, licking her lips where tears have rolled. “Yes.”

“I’m not convinced.”

I lift my hand, and she explodes into laughter before she’s even been touched again.

“I’m sorry.” Her whole body convulses. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

Her stomach concaves, muscles contracting throughout her abdomen, pushing her ribs to the surface of her skin.

It’s a lot like watching her come.

My body responds to the sight the same way. The pressure in my cock turns painful. Energy burns under my skin, consuming me with tension.

Her begging dissolves into laughter.

I undo the button on her shorts, climb off her, and pry them over her hips before she’s even caught her breath.

She grabs onto the sides of her shorts. “We’re outside.”

“Then it’s a good thing no one can see us.” I pry the shorts to her knees.

She lets go but glances around.

This community was designed for privacy, and I’ve never been so glad for it.

“But even if they could”—I lean closer to her—“this is my yard, and you’re my girl.” I grab the back of her thigh. Her legs tangle up in her shorts. I push her knees up. “And I’ll do whatever I want in my yard, to my girl. Do you understand?”

Her eyes are so wide they’re almost popping. “Yes, Daddy.”

“Good.” I finally look down at what I’ve exposed and shove her knees up harder. Fuck. Her pink pussy glistens for me.

My chest burns full.

She’s shaved since yesterday. For me. Shaved so she’d be soft and smooth and silky for me to eat. My mouth almost foams with the desire to bury my face there.

Except she hasn’t earned a reward yet.

I rub between her delicate folds with my thumb. A groan escapes me. She’s slipperier and so much fucking softer than she looks.

She squirms. I rub over her horny little clit, before prodding her sopping entrance. She’s so goddamn wet for me.

I can’t take it anymore. I undo my fly and take out my dick. “This is what teasing girls get.”

She gasps and grabs beneath her knees under her bunched shorts.

I take out a condom and make short work of covering myself. “They get fucked outside like dirty girls.”

“Please,” she whispers in a moan, and it’s impossible to tell if she’s pleading for mercy or for more.

I grab my cock and slide it against her slit. Her shiny folds part. I rub myself on her clit until she moans, then I slide my dick up and down her whole cunt.

Her breaths come faster, and her nails dig into the flesh on her thighs.

I press to her entrance.

“That’s it.” My teeth grind together. She’s fucking tight. So fucking perfect.

Her face scrunches, and her hips wriggle.

“Behave, and I’ll look after you.”

I rub her clit, and her eyes flutter open again.

She looks up at me through dusky lashes and wraps her arms under her knees, hugging them to her. The trust in her expression, even knowing she’s still in trouble, fills me up in a way that’s like growing larger. My body throbs with desire. In that moment, I feel like Superman or Hercules or Zeus himself—giant and infallible.

“Yes, Daddy,” she whispers.

And the soft, vulnerable shake of her voice is even better than the clutch of her cunt as I sink inside her.

“Love me everywhere,” she says.

* * *

He’s filling me up like I knew he would.

I hug my knees. He’s big, so big. He’s is the biggest, strongest man in the world. And all his bigness is driving inside me.

My breath holds. It’s so tight. So perfect.

“That’s it, lovely girl.”

He pushes all the way in, and his scratchy zipper bites my backside, reminding me I’m not getting made love to like a nice girl.

I’m in trouble.

But his expression changes, moving over me. Getting softer and warmer. I’m making him happy. My pussy aches. I hold my thighs, wiggling my hips, needing more. He touches my clit, and it’s so nice it steals my breath.

He pulls out of me, and I reach for him, but he slams back in before I can tug at him.

Pressure fills my belly. My knees are trapped together by my shorts, and all I want to do is spread my legs wide for him.

He slides in and out of me, rubbing harder and faster, and watches what’s happening. “Your horny pussy is creaming all over my cock.”

Heat fills my face. He can see that? I feel it, the wetness that keeps growing every second he’s inside me. Touching me.

He thrusts again and again. The light, orgasmic feeling gets brighter. He removes his thumb from my clit.

The tension snuffs out.

No. I grab his t-shirt. “Please, I’ll be good.”

“I know you will.”

He leans down, pushing my legs higher. My lungs squeeze. He rests his full weight on me. My trapped calves press to his shoulders. He grabs a handful of hair right by my ear. My hips pull up off the mat, and the way his dick jams deep sends aching hurt spearing into my womb.

“You’ll take every bit of my cock like a good girl.”

I push at him. It’s too much.

He squeezes my hair. My scalp stings, stealing attention from my pussy for the second it takes him to grind so hard a shout tears out of me.

“You feel that, baby?”

I can barely breathe. Of course, I feel it. I feel it into my bones. “Yes, Daddy.”

“That’s how hard you made me with all your teasing.”

Just his hips rise up. I feel the withdrawal of his cock like a wrench through my middle.

“You were so mean to me that now I have to be mean to you, so you’ll learn better,” he says.

I get a second to gasp before he lets go of my hair and covers my mouth.

He slams down, directly down, his cock at a brutal angle, filling me to bursting. I scream into his hand. He does it again. And again. Fucks me like the bad, dirty girl I am.

My head bounces against the mat with his thrusts. Pressure fills me, surface to marrow. Bright, burning, passionate pressure. His cock drives into me, and to my shame, I hear the squelching of my lust between us.

He growls, fucking harder, crushing me, until his whole body goes stiff, and he thrusts so hard I see lights. His fingers tighten on my cheeks. I feel the heat of his come in my pussy through the condom.

I cry, desperation for this to not be over making all the feelings bunching inside me spill out. He keeps hold of my face, his weight resting over me. His fingers slip in my tears, palm still blocking my sounds.

He eases off me. I grab onto his hip, but he’s out of me before I can stop him from leaving me this way. He slips the shorts off my ankles and lies down beside me and hauls me close.

I bury my face into his neck and cry more. My pussy stings from how hard he used me. The bursting need is so much worse.

“Shh.” He rubs my back. “You did so good.”

I cling to him. My nipples tickle where his shirt brushes them.

“Do you remember what I promised?”

I sniff and look up at him. My head is a jumble. “No.”

He wipes my cheeks. “I said that if you behaved I’d look after you.”

My tears cease. I’m stuck looking at him. Stuck still at the sweet brush of his thumb under my eye. Mesmerized by the irresistible promise of being looked after.

“But I lied.”

My stomach bottoms out.

He leans closer. “I’ll always look after you, even when you don’t behave.”

Tingles burst over me, zinging over my skin.

He will?

He rolls me over onto my back and spreads my legs. My cheeks burn from his direct gaze, but I let my thighs fall wide for him.

“You’re so naughty.” He runs his hand over my sex. “You liked your punishment too much.”

I bite my lip to stop the moan. He knows how bad I am. I did enjoy it too much.

He rubs my clit in a circle. I cling to his arm.

“You’re lucky I enjoy rewarding you.”

His voice has gone so silky, I didn’t even know he could sound like this.

He pushes two fingers inside me. My teeth clamp over my lip, and my nails hook on his skin. I’m so tender that his touch is sharp. A biting pleasure. He sinks deeper. The heel of his palm presses to my pussy.

The pads of his fingers move in my vagina, and my entire body twitches.

Oh, god. My head gets light. I grab his wrist and watch. What’s he doing? He’s not moving in and out but starts this tug up and down.

The hairs rise up off my body. My hips grind.

He rubs his face in the hair above my ear. “It feels different, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.” I somehow manage to say.

He moves faster, and I’m getting wetter. So wet. The noise makes me feel filthy.

“I’m going to let you come with your G-spot.”

I pant, holding his wrist harder, but it doesn’t slow him down.

He can’t make me do that—that’s not a real thing. But something is happening. A pressure like nothing else. Deep and achy.

“You’ve been such a good girl.” His hand moves faster. “Do you want a big come?”

Something strange is happening. It doesn’t feel like I’m going to come. This feels dangerous. A strain building in my cunt that’s a lot like having held your breath past comfort.

“No, no.” I shove at his hands. Somethings going to burst. “I can’t.”

“No?” His face tightens above me. His fingers keep jerking. “No, to Daddy?”

My legs tighten around his hand. Sweat breaks out over my body. He shifts, leans over me, and holds my left thigh open with his free hand.

“My god, look at this pussy.”

I do as he says; I can’t help it. Oh, no. His whole hand is slick. My flesh is swollen and bright pink. I’ve never seen anything like it.

The tension gathers up my legs.

“Daddy,” I shout.

He looks up at me then makes a growling noise. “No screaming, baby. We’re outside. Everyone will hear what a dirty girl you are.”

My head drops back against the mat. Can’t help it. My body twists. The screams, the “Daddy’s” collect in my throat.

He releases my thigh, grabs the end of my t-shirt, and roughly shoves the fabric into my mouth. I bite down. He moves faster and faster, and everything bunches tight. Then it happens, and it’s like nothing else—I soar.

Fly inside my own body.

Bliss slams into my lungs. I shake and come and turn inside-out. It doesn’t stop—he keeps moving, holding my leg open, and it keeps going.

I spit out the t-shirt. “Daddy, please. Please.”

My abdominals clench and clench and clench.

“Shh.” His movement’s slow. He removes his fingers and rubs his hand over me.

I shudder and writhe and twist. My nerves zing. Why’s it still happening? The sensation gentles. I breathe again. He strokes me like my cunt is precious.

“That’s a good girl.”

My vision blinks clear.

Yes. I smile. I’d do anything for those words. My breaths even.

“You liked that, did you?” He drops down on an elbow next to me, and the mat bounces a little. He’s still petting, stroking, as though he can’t bear to let go of this just yet.

“Mmm hmm.” I roll toward him and snuggle into him.

His hand slides to my hip, sticky, but I don’t care. I breathe in his scent. The clean cotton of his shirt and the deeper, muskier scent of man, along with sex and outdoors.

He rubs his face in the top of my hair. I hold on to him, and it’s so warm, he’s so warm, so wonderful, that I no longer care that he has to go to work eventually.

That I have things to do.

He makes me feel free. Like a kid with no responsibilities.

I can’t let go.